SCAT Electronic News 24 October 1999

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SCAT Electronic News 24 October 1999

      "SCAT - 40 Year's of FAI Free Flight Competition"


Table of Contents
=================

Patterson Info. - Parsons
Jim Patterson FAI Challenge - Someone
2001 Free Flight Qualifying Times - Bradley
World Free Flight Championship 2001 - Montes
WC 2001 TV coverage - O N Board
GPS News - Abad
COUNTERFLASH! - Hines

Patterson Info.
===============
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Would someone pass along the schedule of events and round times for the 
upcoming Patterson meet at Lost Hills (please include the mini-events).  
Thank you in advance.

Dave Parsons

Jim Patterson FAI Challenge
===========================
America's Cup Event

November 20 -21

Lost Hills

Sat 21
F1G F1H F1J
First round 10 am
One hour rounds

Flyoff Sunday 7am - 5 min max

Sun 21

F1A F1B F1C

First round 8 am
one hour Rounds

Flyoff starts 3:30

Sunset 4:50

CD Don leath 661 273 8668
or
Bob White
626 357 2907

Pot Luck Cookout on field Saturday Night
 
2001 Free Flight Qualifying Times
=================================
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To:  2001 FF Team Selection Participants,

The next Team Selection Newsletter, should be in the mail from AMA within 2 
weeks, will list all of the results I have received through 10-24 on a 
contest by contest basis.  Also listed is the date you entered the program.  
Thus far I know of only 3 contest that I have not received the official 
qualifying form from and they are the NATS, a Palm Bay Contest, and the 
Sierra Cup (NOTE: I am including the Sierra Cup results in my tabulation from 
the results posted on the SCAT Web page since it was only held last weekend).

If you have qualified but all of your times are not reflected in the results 
FAX, 407- 273-6586, or mail me a copy of your program entry card that was 
sent to you when you entered the program with the times recorded and signed 
by the CD's.  Do not call or write me and just tell me you flew such and such 
contest.

Gill Morris is trying to contact the NATS CD and get the results Faxed to me 
by this weekend.  If I receive them they will be included in the these 
results.

Jim Bradley
2001 TSSC Cochairman  

... then as we speak ..
 
NATS & Sierra Cup Qualifing Times Update Info
=============================================
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Roger,

You may want to edit the E-mail that I sent earlier today to reflect that I 
have received the NATS results, through Gill Morris, and the Official Flight 
Times Report from Roger Simpson for the Sierra Cup.  These times for these 
two contest will be reflected on the full report in the next Newsletter.

Jim Bradley

 


World Free Flight Championship 2001
===================================
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

As you know, the next Free Flight World Championship in the three FAI
categories is going to be held in Australia on April 18-24 2001, near
the city of Wagga-Wagga in New South Wales. More information will be
found in the Organising Committee Web Page at : 

        http://www.chariot.net.au/~bluejay/ff2001.html

Prospective participants and visitors are cordially invited to look at
the available information in the Web Page or to write to the Secretary
of the Organizing Committee for further information.

Sergio Montes
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

[Sergio, What's your full address ? I didn't
think that Hobart was that small or you
had sufficent notoriety that the Post Office whould
know you that well]

WC 2001 TV coverage
===================

Sergio

With the work that is being done on on-board video a cameras
that will transmit from model back to ground. The current all
up weight of a unit is probably less than
10 grams. This means that we will be able to have on board TV 
coverage of our events just like the do for automobile races.

So you have to do a deal with the Austrailan TV channels !

The person who is not able to got to the event would also
be able to get the feed via the internet - they could select
whose model they want to follow.

This is your chance to experience a Weiler bunt first hand, or
the Verbisky wiggle in F1C or rate the diffent F1B launches ...!
I do hope the prop starts.




GPS News
========
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


Hi Roger,
I just find this interesting GPS tracker, is that what Tapio wrote
about?
Very interesting!
Regards,
Javier Abad

http://www.protectmetoys.com/news.htm


USAToday TODAY - TECH EXTRA Wednesday, July 7, 1999
The Columbus Dispatch Monday, April 26,1999
Los Angeles Times May 25, 1999

Protect your child, via satellite
Tiny device designed to lessen chance of abduction
By Elizabeth Weise
USA TODAY
When William Brown was worried about the safety of his 3-year-old
granddaughter, his wife told him to go out and buy a tracking system for
her. They've got them for cars, they must have them for kids, she
told him.

The Toys R Us clerk looked at him like he was crazy.
So he and his business partner, Danny Booker, 50, both of Anderson, S.C.,
went on a quest. The semi-retired friends had made their fortunes selling

pre-paid phone cards. But the need for a way to track children who have
been abducted touched them as grandparents, and they set out to make it happen.

Over the last year, they've designed and built what they believe to be the
first portable satellite child-tracking system.  It consists of a 1½ pound
device, about the size of a cellular phone, that can be hidden in a backpack or
concealed in a stuffed animal.

"We don't want anyone to have a false sense of security," says
Brown, 48.  "Parents still have to do all the other things they have
to do to protect their child."

But the "satcel" (satellite cellular) device can help.  Its
Global Positioning System locator, when activated, takes readings from a n
etwork
of satellites to pinpoint its location within a tenth of a block and sends the
information back to a 24-hour-a-day tracking center. 

Currently, the device holds a charge for about a day, but the technology is
constantly improving.  The second generation, due late next year, will be
about the size of an eraser. 

San Diego County, Calif., is testing two of the devices on children at high
risk for abduction, where a non-custodial parent in a divorce has made threats,
says deputy district attorney Garry Haehnle, head of the county's
child-abduction unit.

Even if the abductor removed the device, "we'd know where they were 15
seconds ago, and that gives us a huge heads-up,"  Haehnle says. 

According to the FBI, more than 350,000 children are abducted each year,
mostly by family members. David Shapiro of the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children says that the figure includes only about 300 abductions by
strangers. 

It's those kinds of figures that convince the pair that the $500 devices
should be free to all children. "Shame on anybody who tried to make money
off this," says Booker.

To that end, they've created a company, Grandparents Inc., that will
manufacture and distribute the systems. So far they've used all their own funds
to design and build the prototypes. Now their hoping for corporate sponsors to
underwrite the costs of mass-production and distributing them. 

Already, Rogers Communications of Canada has taken an interest. A large media
and technology conglomerate, the company has more than 300 video stores across
Canada, which Brown and Booker hope to use as distribution points. 

Grandparents Inc. also has received calls from others who need to be
unobtrusively tracked, including undercover police officers, Alzheimer's
patients at nursing homes and hikers in national forests. One option would be t
o
sell the devices for use with adults, and use the income to buy and distribute
the units for kids. 

Brandon Ward of Child Search in Houston says the child tracker isn't the
answer to every situation, but it can be a significant deterrent. "I wish
every pedophile in America thought every child had one." 

For more information, call 800-557-2842 


Los Angeles Times May 25, 1999

Here and Now
Have You Tracked Down Your Kid Today?
"They can track down cars," Bill Brown's wife told
him.  "They ought to be able to track kids."

It made sense to Brown, who was worried the safety of his 3-year-old
granddaughter.  Surely he could go out and buy some kind of a child-tracking
device, the type that people buy for their cars.  He was wrong. 

But a year later, he and a business partner, Dan Booker, have developed what
they say is the first-ever portable satellite child-tracking system. 

The system includes a 1½-pound device, about the size of a cellular phone, that
can be hidden in the bottom of a backpack, in clothing, or in a fanny
pack.  When the device is turned on, a child with the unit can be tracked
anywhere in the United States within 30 seconds, via satellite signal.

Working out of an office in Anderson, S.C., Brown and Booker have formed
Grandparents Inc. to develop and distribute the devices.  They do not plan
to sell them for a profit, Brown said.  Instead they hope corporate
sponsors will buy the units and distribute them for free.  The partners ar
e
working to get the cost of each unit down to about $200, with a $5 monthly
fee.  They are also talking to nonprofit groups and prosecutors in child
custody departments nationwide about ways to distribute the devices. 


So far, the unit is available only through Child Search, a Houston-based
non-profit organization, (281) 350-KIDS.  Child Search plans to give away
500 units to at-risk children in an application process that has yet to be
determined.  Potential corporate sponsors should call (800) 557-2842. 


The Columbus Dispatch  Monday, April 26,1999

Device keeps tabs on kids by satellite
The developers want to give away the tracking units.
By Allen G. Breed
Associated Press

ANDERSON, S.C. - Dave Smith stares at a computer screen as a satellite map o
f
North America telescopes down to a grid of a major city and, finally, to a
single neighborhood.

He clicks a mouse.  A dial tone sounds, followed by the screech of a
modem.  Suddenly an icon appears at the intersection of Linwood Drive and
Warren Road.  A few seconds later the icon lurches to another spot on the
map.

"He's out on the highway now," said Smith, a former computer
programmer.

Smith, now a computer consultant, has just accessed a global positioning
satellite unit in Canada.  He's hunting down a software engineer in Toronto
posing as a kidnapped child for this test.

All from an office in South Carolina.  All because a pair of
businessmen-grandfathers decided that if you can track a stolen car, you should
be able to track a stolen child.

"You can replace an automobile," said Bill Brown, who along with
Dan Booker founded Protect Me Toys last year.  "You can't replace a
child."

Their plan is to eventually give away the devices.

"We're not Bill Gates, but we live comfortably," said Booker, 50,
who with Brown struck it rich selling prepaid telephone cards.

The pair have spent about $250,000 to develop a system that can be hidden in
the bottom of a backpack.  Now they're looking for investors to help bring
their plan to fruition.

The idea developed a few years ago when Brown's son divorced and Brown said
he searched for something to help him keep track of his 3-year-old
granddaughter, but found nothing.

The two friends eventually found Canadian Marconi, which was selling GPS
units to do everything from tracking loose bulls to telling golfers how far the
y
hit a ball.

Marconi took a GPS card that it developed for Boeing jetliners and it made it
more sensitive.  With receiver and antenna, the unit - about the size of a
box of animal crackers - weighs about 1½ pounds.
The unit basically "sleeps" until it is called by the tracking
center, so the battery doesn't run down unnecessarily.  There's no ringing
when it's contacted, so as not to tip off a kidnapper.

It's possibilities are numerous, said Smith, a consultant on the
project.  People could use the device to track a grandparent with
Alzheimer's disease, hikers, wayward teen-agers - even the school bus a child i
s
riding. 

[Actually on reading this I think that some of the work that Ken Bauer
and Aerovironment have done would produce a unit musch smaller
than mentioned the above articles]



COUNTERFLASH!
=============
Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In response to F1CDoug's FLASH note, I'll have 
you know that the total membership
of TIBL(The International Brotherhood of Luddites, 
the RDT Control Inc. and FESA
(the Flat Earth Society of the Americas) would be AT LEAST 
ten times your rediculous
estimate of 14, except for the unfortunate demise of 
the FESA founding fathers.
I would say more on this subject except for the fact 
that my tongue isplanted firmly
in my cheek!

LEE




......................
Roger Morrell